Thoughts on the most difficult instruments for speakers to reproduce?

Thanks for the excellent comments, interesting they lean mostly to piano. I agree, but IMO systems generally recreate piano sound that, while lacking, is still pleasurable to listen to. In my original post I was thinking more of instruments that are “off” in otherwise excellent recordings, enough to make you hit the switch.

Anyway, this has me thinking that any equipment audition absolutely needs to include bringing along familiar recordings that are difficult to reproduce. This will help greatly to narrow down the selection and spot significant strengths and weaknesses (especially in speakers).

I went to a high-end audio shop recently and auditioned a well-respected tube integrated and well-reviewed speakers (combined about $13K). The owner started by playing the Blood S&T Spinning Wheel opening horns (digital), truly a horrifically hyped disaster. It sounded like a screeching crow being attacked mid-air by a hawk…just unbelievable. That’s what convinced me that dealer supplied material is no way to audition equipment, and not bringing my own was a missed opportunity. There were some challenging recordings I could have brought that would have given the equipment a chance to shine…or not.

(jmcgrogan2, you’re dead on about massed strings and digital. I did some compares and you’re right the difference is striking. Goes to show that dig, though getting very good, is not yet on par with vinyl).
JL

Completely agree. I think we spend far too much time (and money) on equipment variation and not enough on recordings quality. This has been a constant challenge and frustration over the years, first with vinyls (dirty, worn, warped, and poorly engineered), and now with digital.  Few dig recordings come with a provenance and are a real crap shoot. I still haven’t figured out what “remastered”even means, it definitely doesn’t assure that it isn’t just an upsampled dupe of the original cd made 15 years ago. Recording quality is the most important piece in the chain, because no matter what equipment comes after it, it is still garbage in garbage out. Ironically often times the better the equipment the worse it sounds, because it doesn’t hide the warts. All I know is that half the recordings I download from jd tracks land up unplayed. There is one benefit over vinyl though, at least they don’t collect dust. 

Steve...glad you were able to avoid an expensive mistake. Tweeter attributes are critical in speaker selection. Don’t laugh but I would always bring the ultimate tweeter killer speaker shopping with me, BST Spinning Wheel. The opening horns exposed serious flaws in many expensive speaker tweeters . Ultimately I went with  soft domes which is a trade off but worth it to me....not that those BST horns will ever sound good on any speaker :)